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Monday, August 31, 2015

Plenty has already been said about the huge debut of Fear the Walking Dead (4.93), which enters this table at well over four times the next biggest show. There are definitely a lot of different ways of looking at this. If it were a The Walking Dead episode, it would be just the forty-seventh biggest episode of that series. But if it were a broadcast drama episode, it would be the ninth-biggest one of those in the last four-plus years! (Trailing only six Empires and two Super Bowl lead-outs.) The bottom line is that it's OK to be a tad underwhelmed by this 4.93 in the context of The Walking Dead's history, but TWD is such an incredible anomaly that it will still be unbelievably enormous in any other context.

The few Sunday originals fared well again, with Big Brother (2.1) having a shot to adjust up to tie its season high and Bachelor in Paradise (1.4/1.3) either tying or setting a new Sunday season high.

Preseason NFL preemptions mucked up the Friday/Saturday prelims again,
but Sunday night's only game was the national broadcast of
Cardinals/Raiders on NBC, which averaged a 2.0 from 8:00-11:00. The Fox
animated reruns (0.9/0.9/0.7/0.9/0.6) got a boost from the afternoon NFL game, including
a preliminary 1.9 in the 7:00 half-hour.

Friday, August 28, 2015

It's the only week of the NFL preseason without Thursday games, and several shows took advantage. On CBS, Under the Dome (0.9) finally inched up after several weeks at 0.8, and Big Brother (2.0) may join it on the upside after finals. Food Fighters (0.9) was steady at a high-end rating for NBC, and even Fox's Boom! (0.7) did a little better than usual.

It was a separation Thursday for the bubble dramas on ABC, where Mistresses (0.8) held at last week's above-average rating but Rookie Blue (0.5) collapsed to a new low. A repeat of Beyond the Tank (0.8) at 8/7c slightly outrated the last few episodes of The Astronaut Wives Club.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The A18-49+ season recaps combine all of a season's updates in the A18-49+ theme posts. Aside from "Defining Shows", everything here is copy-pasted from the 2014-15 updates published earlier this summer. Even the stuff in the intro has largely been written around here before. But if you missed all the early-summer updates, this serves as a one-stop way to catch up on the season from many angles!

NBC's second of the three-week sitcom runs began with The Carmichael Show posting a 1.1 at 9:00 and dropping to a 0.9 at 9:30. This was a tenth worse in each half hour than the debut of Mr. Robinson three weeks ago, even though America's Got Talent (1.6) was a notch stronger than on that night. Last Comic Standing stayed at 1.1 at 10/9c.

Elsewhere, it was Big Brother (2.0), Celebrity Wife Swap (0.8) and Home Free (0.8) slightly down in the prelims, while Extant (0.8) and the CW's America's Next Top Model (0.5) and A Wicked Offer (0.3) were slightly up in the prelims.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

NBC's dominant lineup continued to give back its surge from two weeks ago, as America's Got Talent (2.1) and Hollywood Game Night (1.1) were each at or near their season low points.

CBS had the best night as NCIS (1.0) and Zoo (1.1) were back on the upswing, and the latter could be close to adjusting up to yet another 1.2. Meanwhile ABC's Extreme Weight Loss (0.6) and Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.5) were even more dire than usual.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

At least in the prelims, it was a breakthrough night for Bachelor in Paradise (1.8), which exploded to a new series high that was three tenths above any previous point, and After Paradise (1.1) was also up massively. I'm kinda figuring there was some preemption I don't know about, but if they hold, we're talking about Paradise moving very close to legit Bachelorette territory.

If those ABC numbers hold in finals, they probably benefited at least a bit from NBC's American Ninja Warrior going into clip show mode and averaging a 1.4. That led into a new season low for Running Wild (1.0), and those numbers still have to sweat out a Cincinnati preemption.

The CW's Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.6), Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) and Significant Mother (0.3) are pending an NYC preemption.

Continuing our massive data dump of War of 18-49 tables for broadcast series that don't have their own posts... here are the incomplete records for a slew of notable dramas that premiered before the 2001-02 season (the start of the A18-49+ era). In case you missed it, here's the comedy version of this post.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Kind of a slow week premiere-wise, with the only arrival of note being ABC Family's Young and Hungry (0.43) for the second half of season two. Like their other multi-cams Melissa and Joey and Baby Daddy, it's had a pretty healthy year-to-year drop by cable standards. And the one thing that really surprises me about these ABCF multi-cams is how high their Skews are. Even though these are considered relatively traditional shows, they attract as high a percentage of 18-49ers as pretty much anything else in these tables (well, at least until FXX's comedies return).

CABLE UPDATE:Fear the Walking Dead broke cable premiere records with 10.1 million viewers and 6.3 million adults 18-49 (translating to a 4.9 or 5.0 demo rating). This was only about two-thirds the rating of an average episode of last season's The Walking Dead proper, but that still makes it really massive.

On broadcast, there was a lot of preseason NFL this weekend, but it didn't stop Bachelor in Paradise (1.3) from steadying at its Sunday high point. Big Brother (2.2) would tie its season high yet again but could be affected a bit by Dallas and San Francisco preemptions. Fox's national NFL telecast on Sunday averaged a preliminary 1.7 from 8:00-10:00, which may adjust up a bit but should fall below the 2.1 on the third preseason Sunday last year.

To wrap up this summer in The War of 18-49, this week will be a massive dump of War of 18-49 tables for broadcast series that don't have their own posts. Monday and Tuesday are what I call the "tail end" posts, looking at my incomplete record for a slew of notable shows that premiered before the 2001-02 season (the start of the A18-49+ era). Wednesday and Thursday are the "front end" posts, covering currently running scripted series that aren't yet four years old. And Friday will be news and sports series.

Friday, August 21, 2015

FINALS UPDATE: NBC lost 0.2 from the prelims, but that still meant a high-end night with Food Fighters (0.9) and Dateline (1.2). Fox was down 0.1 for Boom! (0.6) and 0.2 for Bones (0.5), and even CBS had some atypical downward adjustments for Mom (1.1) and Big Brother (2.0). ABC emerged unscathed, meaning the Astro Wives finale (0.7) and Mistresses (0.8) were each up a tick from last week.

It was a light card for the NFL presesason this Thursday, as the biggest preemptions came on clearly inflated Fox (Boom! (0.7) and Bones (R) (0.7)) and NBC (Food Fighters (1.1) and Dateline (1.4)).

ABC's The Astronaut Wives Club (0.7), Mistresses (0.8) and Rookie Blue (0.6) as well as CBS' Big Brother (2.1) and Under the Dome (0.8) and CW's Beauty and the Beast (0.2) all looked normal-ish, but it's possible there could be some adjustments due to smaller markets?

Thursday, August 20, 2015

FINALS UPDATE: MasterChef (1.4) went up to avoid a new worst-since-premiere rating (though even at 1.4, it was still down a sobering 30% year-to-year).

The Tuesday America's Got Talent audience still isn't really catching onto the Wednesday results show, which was stuck at 1.6 in its second week. Mr. Robinson posted a 1.0/0.9 for its last two episodes, inching down at 9:30. Not really sure what to make of these ratings, but NBC will get a fairly direct comparison point as The Carmichael Show will have the same situation over the next three weeks. And Last Comic Standing (1.1) shed another tenth after last week's big drop.

Big Brother (2.1) and MasterChef (1.3) both inched down at 8/7c, with Big Brother needing a fairly substantial adjustment (from 2.1/2.0 half-hours) to tie its season high yet again. MasterChef would hit its worst-since-premiere rating if it doesn't adjust up. Home Free (0.9) was back up to its premiere rating, staying ahead of Extant (0.7) at 9/8c, while CW's A Wicked Offer (0.2) was down after two weeks at 0.3.

ABC had its strongest Wednesday in awhile with The Middle (0.9), The Goldbergs (0.9) and Celebrity Wife Swap (0.9) all at their best numbers since June.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

After some big surges last week, the usual Tuesday leaders came somewhat back to earth this week. CBS' Zoo (0.9) had the most drastic drop, needing some finals help to avoid a new low. On NBC, America's Got Talent (2.2) was down from last week's 2.5 (but still significantly up year-to-year), and Hollywood Game Night (1.3) lost at least a tenth of last week's growth.

ABC preliminarily had above-average Fresh Off the Boat repeats (0.8/0.7) but has to sweat out a Chicago preemption. Extreme Weight Loss (0.7) and Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.6) were stuck at their usual very low numbers.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

FINALS UPDATE: Back to earth came the CW, with Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.5) and Significant Mother (0.2) on the low end of normal and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) on the high end of normal. American Ninja Warrior (1.9) was up and After Paradise (0.7) down.

If they hold after finals, the CW had new season highs across the board with Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.7), Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.6) and even Significant Mother (0.4). Penn preliminarily tied the 0.7 series high hit once last summer. However, a New York preemption makes downward adjustments likely.

On NBC, American Ninja Warrior (1.6/2.1) and Running Wild (1.3) gave back last week's gains, but ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.5) was able to hold onto last Monday's season/series high and could set a new one after finals. However, ABC dropped fast from there with After Paradise (0.8) and The Whispers (0.5), which amazingly had its third consecutive new low.

Monday, August 17, 2015

The week's biggest mover was the summer finale of Pretty Little Liars, which exploded from its normal 0.8ish level all the way to a whooping 1.39, the biggest rating for a scripted original since the True Detective premiere. It was the show's biggest same-day rating in almost two years, and in its six summer runs it's only had one rating bigger (a 1.40 on 8/27/13).

Friday, August 14, 2015

After preemptions were weeded out in finals, most shows (which, of course, had reduced household coverage) ended up toward the low end. Boom! (0.5) was the only original to actually hit a new low, but The Astronaut Wives Club (0.6), Rookie Blue (0.6), Food Fighters (0.7) and Under the Dome (0.8) all tied.

CBS notably sat out The Big Bang Theory in favor of a second Mom repeat (0.7/0.8), which likely played some additional role in making Mom (and possibly the CBS originals) even lower than usual.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.2) went up to tie its season high for the third time in four episodes, and Modern Family (1.1) was also up. America's Next Top Model (0.4) couldn't hold onto its week-to-week growth.

A night after America's Got Talent's triumphant surge to 2.5 on Tuesday, it had a somewhat mediocre return to live Wednesday results shows, averaging a 1.6 in the 8:00 hour. That was just a tenth above last week's "World's Got Talent" special. In light of that, Mr. Robinson dropping to a 1.0 at 9:00 (and holding the 1.0 at 9:30) seems like a relatively typical week two drop. But Last Comic Standing (1.2) took a sizable step down at 10/9c.

On CBS, Big Brother (2.1) will likely adjust up to tie its season high again, but Extant (0.7) gave back a tenth. ABC had some good comedy repeat news as The Goldbergs (0.8) bounced back and Black-ish (1.0) hit its biggest repeat rating in a couple months, tying its Modern Family lead-in. CW's America's Next Top Model inched up to 0.5 in week two.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

FINALS UPDATE:Zoo adjusted up to hit its 1.2 premiere number for the fourth time, while Hollywood Game Night (1.4) went down (but was still, like Talent, up three tenths from last week). On cable, the finale of Pretty Little Liars got an enormous spike to 1.39, 35% above last summer's finale and the biggest number for a scripted series since True Detective's premiere over seven weeks ago.

Even by its usually dominant standards, NBC had a great night as America's Got Talent (2.5) and Hollywood Game Night (1.5) each surged by multiple tenths. The utter lack of Tuesday competition surely helps, but historically Talent has almost never been this close to its early-season levels well into August. This was a second straight Tuesday point up double digits year-to-year.

CBS also had good news with a rebound for Zoo, which (provided it doesn't adjust up) hit its first 1.1 after six weeks at either 1.2 or 1.0. Straggling originals Extreme Weight Loss (0.7) and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (0.6) stayed even, though Fox improved a touch in the second hour by adding a Brooklyn Nine-Nine repeat (0.5) at 9/8c.

FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother (2.2) adjusted up to tie its overall season high, and Friday's Masters of Illusion (0.4) went up to hit a new summer high. The Hall of Fame Game went up to a 3.6, up 29% year-to-year and just barely behind the 2013 game. The finale of True Detective (1.21) topped Sunday cable but significantly trailed last year's finale (1.57).

The first data point for the NFL season was a promising one, as NBC's Hall of Fame Game (3.2) was significantly above the 2.5 preliminary for last year's game (which later adjusted up to 2.8). It'll probably end up a bit below the 3.8 from two years ago.

Big Brother's early August heat continued with a new Sunday season high (2.1), while Bachelor in Paradise (1.2) inched up in its second Sunday episode but remained below Monday's rating. It was a rough weekend for ABC's medical documentaries as Saturday's Boston EMS (0.4) and Sunday's Save My Life: Boston Trauma (0.6) each took a hit.

ABC's Bachelor in Paradise (1.5) had its strongest point yet, surging to tie last season's high point. It remains a much stronger option on Monday (even with one-hour editions) than on Sunday. However, After Paradise stayed at 0.8 in week two and The Whispers (0.6) fell to its second straight new low.

NBC's American Ninja Warrior (2.0) and Running Wild (1.4) also grew from last week, though Wild as always has to hope to hold onto it after finals. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance and all the CBS repeats hit exactly 0.9, which meant full 8:30 retention again for The Odd Couple (0.9) and above-average showings from Scorpion (0.9) and NCIS: Los Angeles (0.9).

And the CW joined in the fun as Penn and Teller: Fool Us (0.6) and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.5) each preliminarily tied their season highs. Significant Mother matched last week's 0.3 premiere.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Adult Swim's Rick and Morty (1.12) extended its lead over the rest of scripted original cable, growing 9% to another new series high in week two. We'll see next week if it could hold that crown against last night's finale of True Detective.

Friday, August 7, 2015

FINALS UPDATE: The Republican debate on Fox News averaged a truly ridiculous 24 million viewers, and the A18-49 rating was a still sky-high 5.3 (about on par with a higher-end Monday Night Football game). Jon Stewart's final The Daily Show was also a standout with a 1.43, about three times its normal rating.Big Brother adjusted up to 2.1.

On a night whose most memorable rating will come from the Republican debate on Fox News, one of the few broadcast offerings on the upswing was actually the newsmagazine Dateline (1.1). Its lead-in Food Fighters (0.9) was also on the high end.

Meanwhile, it was the scripted shows hit hardest. Under the Dome (0.8) plummeted to a new low for CBS, while ABC also took a hit across the board as The Astronaut Wives Club (0.6), Mistresses (0.6) and Rookie Blue (0.6) all tied their previous lows.

Despite Dome's struggles, CBS still dominated the night as Big Brother (2.0) was back in the twos for the third time in four airings.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

FINALS UPDATE:Big Brother was up to a new season high 2.2, and everything else at 1.4 (America's Got Talent, Last Comic Standing, MasterChef) also ticked up.

NBC's sitcom Mr. Robinson began its three-week run with a 1.2 at 9:00, pretty respectable retention of its lead-in from another America's Got Talent special (1.4), but it fell somewhat to a 1.0 at 9:30. We'll see if it gets more lead-in help next week as America's Got Talent finally enters the live results show phase. Last Comic Standing (1.4) held up very well again at 10/9c with a much reduced lead-in.

CBS got a major surge at 8/7c from Big Brother (2.1), which could hit a new season high if it adjusts up. The network then had two steady hours of Extant (0.8/0.8).

The CW brought back America's Next Top Model (0.4) even earlier in the summer than usual, matching the 0.4 for last year's mid-August Monday premiere. It led into new unscripted entry A Wicked Offer (0.3).

And Fox inched down with MasterChef (1.4) and Home Free (0.8), though the former may well adjust up to its fourth straight 1.5.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

FINALS UPDATE:America's Got Talent (2.2) was up and Hollywood Game Night (1.1) down yet again, making it four straight one-tenth drops since the premiere.

Tuesday leader NBC got more competition than usual from ABC's annual CMA Music Festival, but NBC fared much more favorably in that duel this year. The three-hour CMA Music Festival averaged a 1.2, massively down from last year's 1.9, while America's Got Talent (2.1) was actually above last year's rating against the Festival. Hollywood Game Night (1.2) was even again in the prelims but is usually a downward adjustment candidate.

Meanwhile, CBS' Zoo (1.0) gave back last week's spike, and Fox did noticeably worse than the two-and-through Knock Knock Live by installing a one-hour repeat of The Last Man on Earth (0.3).

FX's American Horror Story began on 10/5/2011 with 3.184 million viewers and a 1.6 demo rating. After a drop to 1.4 the next two weeks, it grew the next two weeks and settled right around a 1.6, never going higher than 1.8 or lower than 1.4 in season one. It was unquestionably a success, but not a particularly huge one. For example, this average was only about on par with the first season of TNT's Falling Skies, a show was never much more than a solid performer. And it was well behind FX crown jewel Sons of Anarchy.

AHS had held up well enough that a sophomore bounce seemed possible for the second season, Asylum. It certainly followed that script with the season two premiere, opening at a 2.2 that was way above the whole of season one. But it quickly dropped to 1.7 in week two and settled at the same 1.6ish from season one for the next month. Then came a very ill-fated Thanksgiving Eve airing, which saw the show plummet to a 0.9 that remains easily the series low. Beyond that, there was a noticeable portion of the audience that never returned to Asylum; it only averaged about a 1.3 in the second half of the season, putting season two as a whole down 10%. (By the way, it's never aired on Thanksgiving Eve again.)

The Season Three Leap To Elite

Though Asylum went down as something of a failure to launch, each season is a new beginning for American Horror Story. And that was never more obvious than in the premiere of season three, Coven. Despite the show's string of low-1's late in season two, the fall 2013 premiere skyrocketed all the way to a 3.0, going yet another massive step above all that came before it. This time, the premiere was big enough that even with another big post-premiere drop, it was able to sustain a much larger rating than in previous seasons; Coven mostly hit low-2's through the fall of 2013, with a few upper-1's for the early 2014 episodes. That put it well above the broadcast league average, making it one of the truly elite cable series.

Season four, Freakshow, eked out another series high with a 3.1 premiere on 10/8/14, but ultimately went down as another minor post-premiere disappointment. It stayed in the low-2's for about a month after the premiere but petered out into the mid-1's for the December and January months. This put it 12% behind season three. Overall, it's a highly acceptable drop by cable standards, if not that thrilling in light of the 3.1 premiere.

The Biggest Drop Yet

Ever since season two, American Horror Story has always taken the same kind of trajectory: a huge start, followed by huge post-premiere drops. But for American Horror Story: Hotel, it was pretty ridiculous even by AHS standards. With Lady Gaga joining the cast, the first two weeks' 2.99 and 2.15 were extremely healthy on a year-to-year basis. But it just. Kept. Going. Down. Over half the premiere audience was gone by week five, and it was actually fractional for episodes ten and eleven, meaning it had lost over two-thirds of the premiere audience. The overall decline, -22%, is no worse than a league average decline on cable nowadays, but this one was just ridiculously front-loaded. It'll be interesting to see how much of the crowd comes back for next fall.

Recovery

The sixth season of AHS was a nice bounce-back for the franchise after a
somewhat disappointing fifth installment. We're using a projected Plus
above but unless the league average miraculously gets over 1.3, it is
basically certain to be a new series high for AHS. The shorter
season (and lack of holiday breaks) definitely helped the trend here,
which was actually -1% if you just compare with the year-ago first ten
episodes.

At least so far, it doesn't seem that the heat on this summer's The Bachelorette has translated to Bachelor in Paradise. The spinoff was back for season two with a 1.0 in the 8:00 hour and a 1.1 at 9:00, down more than average from last year's 1.4 premiere and 1.4ish season average. However, since Sunday is an irregular night for the Bachelor shows, we should probably wait to see what happens with tonight's Monday episode. Week three of Save My Life: Boston Trauma (0.8) gave back last week's uptick.

Sunday's only other broadcast original was Big Brother (1.8), which couldn't pick up any steam even as Paradise provided much less competition than previous occupant Celebrity Family Feud.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

FINALS UPDATE: A common theme in recent weeks: American Ninja Warrior (1.9) adjusted up and Running Wild (1.3) adjusted down. The 2 Broke Girls repeat was also down to 0.9.

Back on the usual Bachelor night, Bachelor in Paradise (1.3) perked up by two tenths. Despite being only a one-hour episode, this was just a tenth behind last year's Monday premiere. But the network didn't get that much out of a one-hour aftershow After Paradise at 9/8c (0.8), and that helped usher The Whispers (0.7) to another new low at 10/9c.

The CW unveiled its latest summer sitcom experiment Significant Mother (0.3) at 9:30. At a tick behind lead-in Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4), this wasn't much of a splash, but it was still better than previous debacles like last year's Backpackers/Seed as well as this year's Dates on Thursday.

NBC's American Ninja Warrior (1.8) was on the low end, but Running Wild (1.4) hit a season high at 10/9c. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (0.9) inched up from the low set against last week's Bachelorette finale, and CBS' repeats fared pretty well as The Odd Couple (0.9) joined 2 Broke Girls (1.0) in the 8:00 hour.

Monday, August 3, 2015

New this week: Adult Swim's animated comedy Rick and Morty, back for season two with a new series high 1.03. The show had palpable heat through season one, starting at 0.47 and gradually growing as high as 0.87 by season's end.

I haven't said much aboutthe HBO Sunday lineup since it premiered the week before I started doing this, but it's definitely worth noting that Ballers has solidified itself as one of the most successful recent comedy newbies on cable. Its average is only about a tenth behind that of fellow HBO comedy Silicon Valley, even though its lead-in is well over two points weaker. This week was perhaps its most impressive showing yet, as it surged to its second-best number (0.92) and had almost full retention of the gradually dropping True Detective (1.02).